Essay 2.3 | Participating

“ITSM.”

“PRO!”

That call-and-response echoed through a ServiceNow sales kickoff until it stopped being a gimmick and started becoming identity. Kevin Haverty, leading a five-thousand-person sales organization, did not ask people merely to remember the new emphasis on ITSM Pro. He gave them a role. Every time someone on stage said “ITSM,” the audience answered “PRO!”

It sounds small. It was not.

That moment turned listeners into participants. It made attention social. It gave the room something to do together. It trained language in public, created a tiny ritual, and let the audience help correct the message as it moved. The salespeople were no longer simply being told about a product shift. They were rehearsing it together.
That is the power of participation. Attendance means you were present. Audience means you watched. Participant asks: what did you do?

Participation does not always have to be loud. Sometimes it is a cheer, a chant, a vote, a workshop, a question, a taste test, a commitment card, or a shared song. Sometimes it is quiet presence: phones down, attention focused, someone listening deeply enough to let the experience work. A gathering that treats only visible extroversion as participation will misread many of the people it hopes to reach.

Still, people need a doorway. They need a safe way to join the moment at their own level. A purposeful event can create multiple forms of participation: presence, where people truly attend; belonging, where they feel part of a “we”; and agency, where they do something that carries consequence after the moment ends.

The best participation is not forced fun. It is not engagement theater. It is a structure that lets people contribute to the meaning of the room. Once people help make something happen, they relate to it differently. They do not merely receive the story. They have a place inside it.
That is why participation matters so much. Belief is rarely formed by watching alone. It is formed by doing, together, inside a shared story people can remember and repeat.

Acts of Humanity: The Power of Purposeful Events — releasing August 11, 2026. Learn more or pre-order at actsofhumanitythebook.com. #ActsOfHumanityTheBook